Irrevocable
by SubtlyFailing
Summary: She was just here to wish him a happy birthday. Oneshot. Chalant.


**Title:** Irrevocable  
**Rating:** PG/K+  
**Word Count:** 896  
**Character(s):** Zatanna-centric  
**Pairing(s):** Zatanna/Dick  
**Summary:** _She was just here to wish him a happy birthday._  
**Author's Notes:** First YJ fic ever.. and first time to write a fic in about 5 years... I apologize for nothing.

* * *

**_IRREVOCABLE_**

_Recognized: Rocket – two – six, Zatanna – two – five._

_She was just here to wish him a happy birthday._

For what felt like the hundredth time, she reminded herself of that. She was there to wish him a happy birthday, _as a friend._

Zatanna stepped out of the zeta-tube, her high heels clicking against the concrete flooring of the cave. She sighed, breathing in deeply and savouring the familiar smell of the place that had been her home after her father had… changed.

She had missed this place more than she imagined she would after becoming a full-fledged member of the league. She had never once regretted joining, however, she couldn't help missing the team and way it used to be, she missed their inviting faces, smiling whenever they would see her, she missed the jokes, M'gann's cooking, and training with Canary, she even missed Superboy's ever-present temper.

But most of all, she missed _him._

"Justice leaguers in the house! You girls forget to zeta to the Watchtower?"

Mal's voice snapped her out of her reverie. The smiling faces of her old friends filled her with familiar warmth as she, together with Rocket, approached them.

"What can I say? We're slumming," she heard Rocket reply in front of her, the smile on her face audible in her voice. She knew she wasn't alone in missing life with the team. A smile made its way onto her own face as well, "We're not slumming", she quipped, making her way across the room towards the dark-clad leader of the team. His masked face had been serious, eyes scanning the screen in front of him, brows furrowed in thought. No doubt, his calculating mind had been working in high drive to come up with the best strategies for whatever mission he would delegate next.

Upon seeing her, however, his expression softened and his face broke up in a smile that held a familiar gentleness.

"We're on a mission…"

With that, she pulled him in to a kiss, passionate and wanting,. The room went silent with shock, but she couldn't hear it, because for one small moment it was just she and him, it was Nightwing and Zatanna, Dick's rough lips against her own – it was falling asleep in each other's arms after tiring battles, it was late nights in the cave, watching bad movies, it was playing with words, butchering the English language for the sake of a good punchline, and it was affection, hungry kisses in the dark, battle-bruised bodies, tight embraces and whispered word – words she once held so dear – that she still held so dear.

But all those words had been spoken, long ago.

That is why, when she finally pulled away, shifting to speak into his ear, she could offer no more than a gentle whisper.

"Happy birthday, Boy Wonder…"

The sentence hung in the air between them, heavy with emotions that would never again be put into words. If Nightwing felt it, he didn't comment on it. Instead, he grinned, "say it backwards," he quipped, and in a notion of nostalgic affection, he reached out to grab her hands, clutching them in his gloved ones. His masked eyes never wavered from hers.

She laughed, because it was a joke they had shared from when they were young, and things were uncomplicated. Before the love and longing, before the insecurities, the fights, the tears. Before their intimate moments were driven by nothing but desperate lust and they were nothing to each other but a means to fill the void.

She had been the one to put an end to it, _to them. _Finally growing frustrated with the absence of love in his eyes as he looked at her. She had told him that she couldn't do it anymore, that it was hurting her to be with him when she was the only one who felt what she felt. He had told her that he was sorry, and he had looked the part, head bowed and teeth gritted, his muscular frame seeming puny and powerless as he, in a voice that was hoarse and raspy had _begged_ her to still be his friend, to see him again when she was ready. She had cried and he had held her as she cried. She remembered feeling pitiful, because even in that situation, he was the only one who could make her feel better.

They had kept in touch, even after the breakup. It had been hard, it had been painful, but as Artemis had put it, _they wouldn't be able to stay away from each other, even if they tried._

So she bit her lip and endured.

She stayed by his side with a smile carefully etched upon her face, never faltering when he was in sight. It was not because the lovesick teenager within her carried a silent hope, that he eventually would rediscover his feelings for her, no, her view on love had long since turned from romanticized to cynical.

"_Evah a yppah yadhtrib…" _

Nightwing's grin widened at her words, "now it's a lock," he smiled, squeezing her hands. She squeezed his, right back.

_She didn't stay by his side because she wanted him to love her; she stayed by his side because he was an indispensable, irrevocable part of her life, one that she could not be without. _

And one that she _would_ not live without.


End file.
